Afterimage
by reenka
Summary: `He doesn't want to be in love, and he's not. He doesn't know what this is, but he knows what it isn't, and he's fine, he is, living in the negative.' ~~H/D slash. weirdness. nothing is what it seems, and that's the only thing that makes it ok.


disclaimer: blah blah jk rowling owns the [hp] universe, blah.  
  
warning: slash. (no, really??!) yes. (aaaargh, ruuuuun!)  
  
dedication: amalin, whose fics can kick my ass to the moon, and i'd say thank you~:)  
  
  
  
  
~~afterimage  
  
  
  
He doesn't want to be in love, and he's not. He doesn't know what this is, but he knows what it isn't, and he's fine, he is, living in the negative. He puts away every moment, secretly, where he can't touch it, where it won't touch him, as if beneath his pillow. He presses it down, sleeps on it, hoping it'll flatten with pressure, lose dimension. He feels as if they've been stuck in that moment right before a kiss, their breath mingling, eyes closed, the world having narrowed and condensed to the space of a single exhalation, for as long as he can remember. They cannot move, cannot touch, cannot turn away.   
  
He watches the girl lean across the table from across the Hall, brush his hair from his eyes. He watches him smile, touch her hand, and he tries to listen to his breath, but he cannot hear it. He listens and listens, but he cannot hear it. He is angry with himself, he is furious, and helpless, and his own breath is hitching and there's something stuck in his throat, so he swallows down more orange juice and scowls at his plate. He imagines telling him, "If I kiss you, it wouldn't mean a thing, you realize. Not a thing. So I shouldn't, and I won't." He doesn't want to think about it, but the more he tries not to, the more he simply cannot help it, until it becomes the only thing he can see, the only thing that can matter. It doesn't matter, not the future, not the past, and this moment is stretching out endlessly, sweeping across his eyes like a blindfold, making his vision blur reflexively, making his lips tingle. Will he or won't he? He won't, he can't, he isn't. He watches him out of the corner of his eye, watches his mouth move, watches his hand wipe at the corner, watches him laugh. Something flips uncomfortably in his stomach when he sees the laugh, something bitter and vaguely reminiscent of nausea, except it isn't. He's sick of himself.  
  
The more pushes at the image, like an unwanted dish, the more flagrant and vibrant it becomes, unbearable now. Now that he can't even look up, because he's sure it's written all over his face, now that he can't speak because his voice would surely betray him. He covers his mouth with his left hand, daintily, as if to stifle a yawn. His lips are tingling, and his breath is coming faster, and he's walking up to Potter before he knows what he's doing, and he's glaring and bluffing and there, there. Potter's eyes are tracking him, and his laugh has soured and flipped and he's frowning, he's frowning at him, the girl forgotten.   
  
His imagination is getting the better of him. For every single thing he does, he sees a double track, the thing he could've done, shouldn't have done, and didn't. It allows him a sense of relief, of accomplishment even. Even as he passes behind his back, even as the smug smile is subtly making an appearance on his lips, he sees himself reaching out, brushing a hand idly across the other's shoulder. He sees himself swiping a finger or two across that embarrassing mop of hair, testing for softness and sleekness and heavyness between his fingers. It is not real, and it isn't him, and he doesn't do it, so he can live in this moment and in another, and they need never meet. It can go on like this, almost a secret to himself, almost painless, almost seamless.  
  
When darkness comes, he'll bite the corner of his pillow, and close his eyes, and lie awake, listening to the snores of his housemates. It is never quiet, least of all in his mind. There are always, always all the things he doesn't want to hear, doesn't need to hear, doesn't acknowledge having heard. He's not getting up, he's not walking barefoot across the cold stone floor, he's not, he wouldn't, he doesn't. There are no words anymore, and no barriers, and no conditions. He has lost the thread that had bound up all the looseleaf pages of rules and warnings and reminders. Tonight, every night, he will have forgotten, he cannot be held responsible. He will remember when he wakes up, tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. He has simply misplaced his willingness to listen to himself, and he needs to get some air, and this breath, this breath between them, shaky, uneven, uncertain, he had needed to breathe it in, to clear his head.  
  
Their mouths don't touch, and they don't speak, they never do, not yet, not till it's over. They fumble and gasp and breathe, and their hands are cold, and their fingertips are trailing dust and the sticky residue of dreams across the other's skin. Their eyes are no longer tracking, and their knees have hit the floor, and it's alright. It's alright, because they're in their beds, they're safe and sound within their minds, tucked in and counted, fully accounted for, just like they should be, just like they have to be. This is just their imagination, which is okay not to have accounted for. This feels like a shared dream, a stray breath of winter in July, and it is. An afterimage, a flash of green fading into gray until it disappears. He closes his eyes and feels the other's pulse leaping in his throat, underneath his mouth.   
  
"If I kiss you, it doesn't mean...."  
  
"I know. You don't have to. You don't have to say it."  
  
Grey shadows darken, and he feels his eyelids drift shut as if he knows something already, and he doesn't need to admit it. The more he stares at the line, the boundary, the division, the more he tenses, need making him brittle, the need to cross. Their heads are moving slowly, like ships in the night, and neither knows if a collision is inevitable, or if they are just going to brush past each other, mingling sweat and breath and sliding glances. He starts, the spell almost broken by the bright color tingeing the other's cheek. He feels momentarily dizzy, disoriented. What is he doing? He's pressing his mouth against the other's ear, and he's feeling the moisture on his lips, gathering, and his tongue aches from the strain of staying put inside his mouth.  
  
"Yes I do."  
~~ 


End file.
